A Friend's Infirmities
by RoundBrainySpecs
Summary: An exploration of the growth of Adam Adamant and Georgina Jones' friendship through helping each other through the tragedies of each other's lives. It is not, however, an easy road; Adam hides his pain behind stoicism and gentlemanly snark, and Georgina behind a cheerful smile. Tv Show: Adam Adamant Lives!
1. The Funeral

**Author's note:** Thank you in advance for any reviews or criticisms (they are greatly appreciated), and, as always and above anything else, I hope you enjoy!

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 **The Funeral**

The funeral was a large one. Sam Jones may not have had much family, but his had been a face beloved by many. He had been a gentle and kind man, an understanding and sympathetic ear to the troubled. Even most of the regulars to his discotheque came, sobered and only a few able to hold back tears that they shed for the man who was the exception to the rule that no one over thirty understood them. Amongst the mourners, Georgina felt alone; for all the others, her grandfather was a friend, but to her, he had been her world. She couldn't help feeling it was selfish, but she wished the mourners were not there for her grandfather, for he was gone, but there for her; oh, sure, they hugged her and told how sorry they were for her loss and to call on them any time, but it was awkward and hurried as if they wanted to rush away as soon as possible. She shivered though the air was warm; she hadn't any more tears, nothing left but deep, lonely grief.

Suddenly she felt a comforting and protective presence at her shoulder, and the wind blew the edge of a silk-lined opera cape against her legs. She didn't have to look to know who it was, as only one person she had acquaintance of would dress in such a manner, but she did anyway. Adam Adamant detected her gaze and met it; his eyes did not shift from hers, as so many of the other mourners did, but gazed back with quiet sympathy. When the vicar had finished Adam turned to her, and murmured, "I am sorry for your loss, Miss Jones. Samuel Jones, from the little I knew of him, was a good man."

Georgina spoke around the lump in her throat with a quiet, and heartfelt, "Thank you, Mr. Adamant."

"If it will not be deemed unseemly, I wonder if I may provide you with dinner."

"How? You haven't any money."

"While my assets are held by the government, I have been provided with an allowance until my identity has been established."

She assented.

The restaurant was more formal than she would have chosen, but it was nice and Adam Adamant was considerate company. In conversation he did not balk from the subject of her grandfather, rather instead he told her of his brief acquaintance with her grandfather; how he had looked as a young man, how he had seemed a kind and honorable, someone Adam would have been proud to call friend if circumstances had allowed. Adam then asked her to tell him about Samuel Jones, and though she started out slowly, soon the stories and everything she had loved about her grandfather came pouring out. Adam listened with undivided attention, and they laughed at the funny stories, and toasted Sam. What had been simply mourning had turned into a celebration of the life of a good man. When Adam had the cab drop her off at her flat, she still cried through much of the night, but she didn't feel so alone and neither did her grandfather seem so gone.


	2. A Blow to the Head

**A Blow to the Head**

It was not so much the blow (for he had suffered far worse and still been able to fight) but the flashback that accompanied it that debilitated him and allowed his enemies to capture him. He got out of it (as he always did), but he couldn't escape the nightmares that hounded him worse than usual, or the incapacitating flashback he experienced in public when he saw a woman who looked very like Louise - an experience after which he locked himself in his room and neither spoke to, nor saw, anyone. When he reemerged a few day later (to Simms and Georgina's relief and the suspension of their plans to build a battering ram), he appeared to be the same old Adam Adamant: self-possessed, immaculately (if anachronistically) dressed and groomed, complete with his courtly manner and the mischievousness that would light in his dark eyes and emerge in his dry voice. However, when he thought they weren't looking, Georgina and Simms would catch the raw, haunting pain and weariness in his eyes. After a few days the glimpses of this vulnerability disappeared, but Simms said - confidentially, of course - that Adam's nightmares were worse than they had been for some time.


	3. Telephone

**Telephone**

"Good evening, Miss Jones." Adam Adamant's voice was, as usual, slightly too loud over the telephone. "I thought it might save Simms the bother of your incorrigible questioning into my whereabouts, and I the worry of wondering where you might spring from next, if I asked you to accompany me on an assignment to investigate a series of peculiar occurrences."

She didn't want to see him; he would know, somehow he would see beneath, and right now all she wanted to do was bury the pain under endless chatter, loud music, and booze.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Adam, but I promised to meet up with some friends tonight."

True enough.

"Are you feeling ill, Miss Jones?" Adam was concerned. "It's not like you to miss the opportunity to meddle in my affairs."

"No, I'm fine," Georgina replied, forcing more of her usual cheerfulness into her voice, "it's just it's going to be a whacking good party, and there's this new band that's going to be playing there. All the really groovy cats are going to be at this thing."

"Cats? Are there often animals at these modern parties?"

Despite everything, she found Adam's almost perpetual confusion over popular slang amusing, "Oh yes, lots."

"Considering the amount of noise and the class of persons who attend your parties," Adam said drily, "I would have thought the addition of animals to be redundant."

"Why, Mr. Adamant, I do think you're catching on," Georgina laughed.

"Are you quite sure you won't reconsider?"

"I'm sure."

"And you won't try to follow me?"

"No, I won't."

"All right, then," He said, and she thought he almost sounded disappointed. " _Au revoir,_ Miss Jones."

"Goodbye, Mr. Adamant."

She went to the party, laughed, danced, drank, and decided she was now an ardent fan of the new band and she was going to buy every record they ever came out with. Then she went home and cried herself to sleep.


	4. More Than Nostalgia, Part 1

**More than Nostalgia**

 **Part 1**

Adam was obsessing over a new piece of furniture he had bought. 'New', however, was something of a misnomer, as the divan was well over one-hundred years old and had been a gift to Adam's parents. He fluttered around it, his eyes alight with a nostalgia akin to happiness as he ran his hands across it, tutted at some minuscule tear or scuff, and sat himself upon it only to fling himself up and spin about his living room trying to decide the best place to put it.

Georgina watched him with amusement. "I really don't understand why you insist on buying this old stuff, Mr. Adam; you could buy much more fashionable stuff for a lot less."

"Fashion, Miss Jones, is temporal, gone with the next wind of public fancy."

"Yeah, I can see that," Georgina teased, "that's why you can't buy this stuff in the shops anymore."

"This, my dear Miss Jones," Adam gestured to the divan, "is not fashion, it is elegance, and I can hardly hold myself at fault for the taste of this generation."

Georgina giggled, shaking her head, then asked more seriously, "Why _do_ you buy this old furniture, Adam?"

Adam didn't answer right away, his eyes darkened and he hesitated, but finally said, "Because it is evidence they were here. Because, if but for the most fleeting of moments, it feels as though they're still alive."

"Your family and friends."

"Yes."

They said nothing more on the subject, but Georgina never laughed at his obsession over the old furniture again.


	5. More Than Nostalgia, Part 2

**More than Nostalgia**

Part 2

"Oh, come on, Adam, at least give them a chance," Georgina begged.

"Miss Jones, I believe I have made my opinion of this modern noise you call music quite clear," Adam replied. "While I am honoured by your invitation and I appreciate that the infamy of this band will generate business to your (what do you call it?) discotheque, I do not see how my presence at one of your rock concerts would benefit either of us in any way."

Georgina plopped herself down on his divan, her bouncy, room-filling personality wilting into something small and uncertain. When she spoke, her voice was little more than a wavering murmur. "I wanted them to come. I pushed and I begged and I called in favours to get them to come. But now- now I don't know whether I can go and not make a fool of myself. If you come, maybe -" Georgina took a breath, then after a moment said with quiet seriousness, "They were grandfather's favourite band; he dreamt of them coming to play."

Adam was silent for a moment, considering the slight form. His voice was gentle when he replied, "I think I understand, Miss Jones. I should consider it a privilege to accompany you to honour your grandfather's memory."

The band was far too loud and he still found little pleasure in the music and none in the convulsions this generation called dancing (which he refrained from, despite the many and varied attempts by Georgina or others to get him to join in). However, he found that he didn't really care; Georgina's eyes were brighter than he'd ever seen them, living in a time and place she loved and missed – and he (despite his own discomfort) wished on her behalf that the night would never end.


	6. Shot

**Shot**

A frantic knocking roused Georgina from slumber. She stumbled groggily up the steps to her door and opened it. She barely had time for a bemused 'what?' before Simms, Adam Adamant's valet, brushed through the door. Simms' perpetual expression of amusement was absent, replaced by a worried gravitas that made her stomach sink into a cold, roiling mass.

"It's Mr. Adamant, Georgina," Simms' sepulchral voice intoned, "he's been shot."

She remembered little of the next few minutes, just a flurry of finding a coat, tears stinging in her eyes and questions strangled by the lump that had closed off her vocal cords. Somewhere in the midst of the rush, Simms told her that Adam Adamant was not dead, not yet anyway, but had been rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound among several other injuries.

Adam was in surgery. There was nothing for Georgina and Simms to do but wait in the halls, sitting in uncomfortable chairs, hoping the best and fearing the worst.

Georgina sat with her head in her hands, shivering though Simms had even covered her with his own jacket. The pair were (Adam might have commented, had he been there) remarkably and uncharacteristically silent. Their relationship was one of unabated banter, but now Georgina could not arouse even one word of empty insult nor Simms a single rhyme for his constant limericks. The two started every time a nurse would rush up or down the hall, half hoping she came with news, half hoping that she would go on by.

"He can't die, can he, Simms?" Georgina whispered, tears leaking down her face.

"He's Adam Adamant, madam," Simms replied, "You know the stories better than I, and know greater evils than the blackguards who shot him have tried to kill him before."

When the news finally did arrive, it was that he had survived surgery. It would be touch and go for a while, but the doctor did feel that the presence of any family or friends might be of assistance to his will, and that was the most important factor that might draw him through. So Georgina sat at his side. She told him how after her parents' deaths her grandfather told her stories of the great Adam Adamant, how the stories of his exploits had given her strength, hope, and comfort when everything had been at its darkest; how he had saved her life before she was even born. She told him that when she had heard of his discovery in the ice on the same day her grandfather had been killed, how it seemed to her that he had returned to save her again; that he was as much a tie to the modern world as she was for him

Over a day later, when the worst was over and Adam out of immediate danger, he motioned weakly for her to come over, and whispered quietly, "Thank you, Miss Jones, for your words and for my life - twice over, now. And I am glad that my seeming demise occurred that I might have the honor of saving your life, though I did not know it until now. "


End file.
